Hitherto, a mixture of a high-concentration alkaline electrolyte (a high-concentration potassium hydroxide aqueous solution, in which zinc oxide or the like is dissolved if necessary), and zinc powder and/or zinc alloy powder has been mainly used in cathodes of alkaline batteries. In order to prevent the precipitation or fluidization of the zinc powder and/or the like in the alkaline electrolyte, gelatinizers obtained by crosslinking poly(meth)acrylic acid or salts thereof with a crosslinking agent are used. The gelatinizers are usually classified into two types, one thereof being fine particle form crosslinked poly(meth)acrylic acids obtained by precipitation-polymerization or some other operation of (meth)acrylic acid in an organic solvent such as benzene in the presence of a very small amount of a crosslinking agent such as divinylbenzene, and the other being crosslinked polymers of poly(meth)acrylic acid and/or an alkali metal salt thereof having a relatively large particle size, a typical example of which is an water-absorbing resin. The former are used mainly to improve the viscosity of electrolytes or improve the injection property of batteries (supply the fluidity of electrolytes), and the latter are used mainly to improve the impact resistance of batteries. In many battery makers, the two are used together (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 6-349484 and 7-65818).
However, these gelatinizers have advantageous effects for preventing the precipitation or fluidization of zinc powder, improving the impact resistance of batteries, preventing liquid leakage from batteries and attaining others, but if the amount of the added gelatinizer becomes larger, the gelatinizer causes the internal resistance value of the battery to be raised, so as to result in problems such that the discharge characteristic or the lifespan of the battery is lowered.